PARDONS/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump refused to say on Friday [8-17-18] whether he would pardon Paul Manafort as a federal jury in Alexandria ended its second day of deliberations without reaching a verdict in Mr. Manafort’s financial fraud trial. The jurors are weighing what prosecutors have called overwhelming evidence that Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, engaged in a seven-year scheme to hide more than $16 million in income and deceive banks into lending him $20 million. Defense lawyers have suggested that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has unfairly targeted Mr. Manafort, a 69-year-old political consultant, and portrayed oversights and bookkeeping mistakes as blatant acts of fraud. Asked on Friday as he departed the White House whether he would pardon Mr. Manafort if he is convicted, Mr. Trump replied: ‘I don’t talk about that, no. I don’t talk about that.’ Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, John M. Dowd, had broached the prospect of a pardon last year with Mr. Manafort’s former lawyer as the special counsel was building the case against him, raising questions that Mr. Dowd was offering a pardon to influence Mr. Manafort’s decision about whether to cooperate in the inquiry.”
–Sharon LaFraniere, “Trump Calls Manafort Trial ‘Sad,’ but Is Quiet on a Possible Pardon,” The New York Times online, August 17, 2018